ABIDJAN, Cote d’Ivoire (PAMACC News) Eleven African countries are set to benefit from multi-million dollar Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA), which has been launched alongside the 2017 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF).

PIATA is an innovative and transformative partnership and financing vehicle to drive inclusive agriculture transformation across the continent.

Three development partners, which include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have jointly pledged up to U.S. $280 million to catalyse and sustain inclusive agricultural transformation in Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique.

This is aimed at increasing incomes and improving food security of 30 million smallholder farmers.

"We are pleased to be part of PIATA. We see it as an opportunity to leverage even more from the partners and their huge networks, for greater impact,” said Mr. Mamadou Biteye, Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation Africa Regional Office during the launch of the initiative.

“We are looking forward to deploying the technologies that we have helped develop over the years, together with our shared knowledge and grant support, to work with our esteemed partners. Together we hope to catalyze Africa’s pursuit for prosperity through agriculture,” he told delegates at the AGRF in Abidjan.

The PIATA is an important collaboration between donors that aligns behind the Malabo agenda agreed to by African Heads of State and Government in 2014. It signals an enduring commitment to Africa’s transformation agenda. PIATA is but one of various means by which each of the partners are supporting African countries to deliver on agricultural transformation; its partners continue to provide support through avenues including direct support to continental agencies, government bodies and in-country partners. The partnership will allow partners to align and complement existing efforts, making new investments in developing input systems, value chains, and policy where they will have the most impact.

According to the 2017 Africa Agriculture Status Report, Africa needs an agricultural revolution that is distinct and that links millions of small farms to agribusinesses, creating extended food supply chains, jobs and economic opportunities for large segments of the population.  Agriculture is still the best bet for inclusive African economic growth and poverty reduction.

Experts believe that such a transformation will require greater political, policy, and financing commitments from across the public and private sectors. It will also require new partnership models like PIATA, which is hailed as an outstanding example of how partners can collaborating with African countries' visions and systems to deliver on their own transformation, in line with their national economic development strategies.

 Mr. Rodger Voorhies, the Executive Director of the Global Growth and Opportunity Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said, “We’ve seen significant progress when countries recognize the critical importance of agriculture to their economic development and help catalyze agricultural transformation with targeted investments, evidence-based policies, and strong national plans. PIATA is an exciting platform that can help countries take the lead in driving agricultural transformation. Our investment reflects our desire to help countries develop high-quality plans linked to national and continental accountability frameworks.”

 It was also observed that delivering on Africa’s potential requires both the public and private sectors to engage in new ways and strengthen collaboration. The role of the private sector and non-state actors in agriculture development and in support of formulation of country agriculture plans is critical for sustainable growth.

 This was emphasized by Mr. Sean Jones, the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Food Security, USAID. “PIATA offers a new way of doing business across the many public and private actors working to ensure food security and economic growth as called for in country-owned visions and the goals laid out in the Malabo Declaration. Agriculture is at its core a private sector enterprise, and one of the best bets for job creation and inclusive growth when the right policies and investments allow the private sector to flourish. This partnership offers an innovative mechanism to unlock this investment and realize many of the targets laid out in the Global Food Security Strategy approved by our Congress.”

 The PIATA launch comes at a critical time in the continent’s agriculture history. Most African countries have undertaken a rigorous review of the sector, developing and adopting a new generation of sector development plans that prepare them to do business. Continentally, the African Union is coordinating the biennial review of the progress made towards the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) goals, which will be presented in the first Biennial Review Report, along with a scorecard for the Heads of State to guide them in the sector’s transformation.

Welcoming the new partnership, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), expressed her belief that the initiative would contribute significantly to accelerating Africa’s path to prosperity by growing inclusive economies and jobs through agriculture.

 “We have witnessed significant progress in our agricultural transformation over the past decade, with countries that have prioritized the sector recording notable drops in poverty levels, improved food security and inclusive economic growth. PIATA will be critical in bringing key players together to support governments in their push to fully unlock the potential of Africa’s smallholder farming and agribusiness as the surest drivers of job creation and the continent’s inclusive economic transformation,” she said.

 AGRA is the primary implementing institution of the partnership under the institution’s new strategy for the continent and plan agreed with priority countries.
 

OPINION

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - A high level ‘independent’ panel created to enhance the effectiveness of UN-Habitat has proposed the creation of a rival body, called UN Urban, that will take on a large part of UN-Habitat’s work if approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The creation of a separate body to coordinate the sustainable urbanization agenda, which has been the role of UN-Habitat since 1978, will have a major impact on the United Nation’s presence in Kenya.

It would mean major job cuts for Kenyan and expatriate staff working at UN-Habitat.  And these cuts will affect Kenya’s economy, particularly in Nairobi. The effects will not be limited to losses of millions of dollars in foreign income, but will also extend to income losses by those employed (4000) by UN staff, landlords, shops, restaurants, tourist facilities and many others.

The downsizing may go beyond UN-Habitat.  It will also affect the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), created primarily to provide services to UNEP and UN-Habitat, the two UN agencies headquartered in Nairobi.  Currently Kenya is the only developing country to host the Headquarters of United Nations agencies.  The whole UN complex in Nairobi houses over 4,000 staff.  If UN Urban is created in New York, and UN-Habitat is significantly downsized, the need to maintain a large UN Office at Nairobi to service the two agencies, UNEP and UN-Habitat, in Gigiri will diminish.   

The move to create UN Urban comes at a time when the United Nations system is undergoing major reforms aimed at cutting costs to achieve greater efficiency.  These reforms include moving all UN regional offices to the cities where the UN regional commissions are located. In the case of Africa, this would mean moving the UN regional offices located in Kenya to Addis Ababa where the UN Economic Commission is based.

With the move of regional offices and the downsizing of UN-Habitat, the justification for a large UN presence in Kenya will be greatly reduced.  Indeed, there have been past attempts to move UNEP to Europe, but these have been resisted successfully in the past and the government of Kenya played a critical role in keeping the organization in Nairobi.

Some see the hand of the current Head of UN-Habitat, Joan Clos, investigated for racist comments last year, as spearheading the effort to create the rival UN Urban body in New York as his term comes to an end at the end of this year.  He is already making moves to place his cronies in New York and is believed to have constituted the panel that has come up with this recommendation.

The panel report also recommends reducing the level of country programmes on urbanization , which are most valued by developing countries which are rapidly becoming more urban.  It is ironic that the work of the United Nations is aimed at helping developing countries, yet there is resistance in maintaining the headquarters of just two of the UN agencies in the countries that have the greatest understanding of the development assistance that is needed.

Kenya and other developing countries need to send a clear and united message to the Secretary General that our countries are capable, have the facilities, and have the intellectual capacity to contribute positively to coordinating important sustainable development goals.

Indeed, it is Kenya that produced Wangari Maathai ,an internationally renowned Kenyan environmental political activist and Nobel Laureate.  Let us hope the Secretary General, who has welcomed the creation of the rival UN Urban, will listen.

But the African Group representing African nations thinks the recommendations will not necessarily serve to strengthen UN-Habitat and enhance its effectiveness, efficiency, accountability and oversight, as envisioned in the New Urban Agenda.

They cautioned against taking decisions based on the assessment report until their implications are fully reviewed and understood, with full participation and concurrence of member states.

They pointed out that Africa remains optimistic that the reform process, launched at the Habitat III conference, will provide practical recommendations on how to enhance UN- Habitat, including its management and leadership model.

They noted that Africa, being one of the fastest urbanizing regions of the world needs for a UN-Habitat that is fit for purpose to facilitate the effective implementation of the New Urban Agenda.

African nations are opposed to the creation of UN Urban, saying that is not viable. They recommend strengthening existing mechanisms, including the New York office of UN-Habitat, as a liaison office with other UN entities with converging mandates, resulting in increased efficiency and enhanced policy integration while avoiding duplication.

They argued,“UN Urban would create an additional layer of unnecessary bureaucracy and will have financial implications that contradict the general trend of zero budget growth within the UN. It would also complicate and duplicate operations rather than simplify them, in a manner that is counter productive and contributes to weakening UN-Habitat rather than strengthening it.”

According to them, the proposed governance reform package is complicated, inefficient and expensive; it is also self-contradictory and does not in any way contribute to strengthening UN-Habitat.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (PAMACC News) - The era of exporting obsolete technologies to Africa in the guise of meeting the continent’s infrastructure needs in the water and sanitation sector is over, say African water ministers.
 
Ministers responsible for water and sanitation from across Africa made this declaration at the just concluded Africa Focus sessions of the ongoing 2017 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden.
 
Speaking on behalf of the president of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), the Egyptian Water and Irrigation Minister, Dr. Mohamed Abdel Atty, reckoned that by the year 2030, global demand for water will grow by 50% and most of this demand will be in the cities. “The need for newer approaches and technologies for wastewater collection, management and reuse therefore becomes imperative” Dr. Atty says.
 
The Egyptian minister who also doubles as AMCOW Vice President for North Africa region declared that it has become a matter of urgency for Africa to set in motion, “the machinery for the implementation of new game-changing technologies, innovative institutional frameworks and well-designed business models for more effective wastewater management and improved water quality.”
 
Nomvula Mokonyane, South Africa’s Water and Sanitation minister and panellist at the Africa Focus sessions was vehement in her denunciation of obsolete technologies packaged as aid to Africa.
 
According to her, “Africa’s time to get organised and be proud of herself is now. We must avoid being a Guinea pig for life and arise as lead agent for transformation, adaptation and for new technologies, not for solutions that have been rendered redundant in other places.” “Technical capacity building, knowledge and education therefore have become key priorities for us as Africans,” Minister Nomvula said
 
The South African Water Minister strongly urged her colleagues to lead Africa on the path to “dedicated process and programme of progressive implementation, action and performance towards improved water security the sustainable financing.”
 
Reinforcing this position, Dhesigen Naidoo the CEO of Water Research Commission of the Republic of South Africa added that more than half of the innovative water related inventions in use across the globe today came from Africa and Africans. “Africa is the home of innovations in water and sanitation. All we need to do is to scale up," Naidoo said.
 
Another panellist at the High Level Ministerial Panel of the Africa Focus session and Nigeria’s water resources minister, Engr. Suleiman Adamu believes that “African solutions are in Africa and effective management of wastewater will not only improve the economies of Africa, but would also improve and promote good health of Africans.”

It is in this light, according to the minister, that “Nigeria is mobilizing resources through the Partnership for Expanded Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (PEWASH) initiative to address the nation’s Water and Sanitation Sub-sector in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goal-6 on water and safe sanitation in both rural and urban areas of the country.”
 
With home-grown technologies, Dr. Canisius Kanangire, AMCOW’s Executive Secretary envisions a prosperous future for the continent. From what we call waste, Africa can generate wealth, employment and food,” Dr Kanangire added.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (PAMACC News) - African Water and Sanitation Ministers attending the 2017 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden have underlined the importance of wastewater to the region’s aspirations for economic growth and sustainable development.
 
Speaking in Central Stockholm, water and sanitation minsters from the five sub-regions in Africa were unanimous in their resolve to adopt and promote effective wastewater management across Africa.
 
According to them, improved wastewater management is not only critical to achieving the Africa Water Vision 2025 and the Sustainable Development Goal on clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), but also to other goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
 
In an address to over 3,100 delegates at the annual water event in Stockholm, Engr. Gerson Lwenge, the Tanzanian minister for Water and Irrigation and President of the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), recalled that African Ministers responsible for sanitation took proactive steps before the end of the MDGs era in 2015 by adopting the N’gor Declaration with a commitment that Africa will “progressively eliminate untreated waste by encouraging its productive use.”
 
Of equal importance to this commitment according to Engr. Lwenge, is “the fact that to actualize the potentials of turning waste to benefits, Africa needs to create the right policy environment and move from policy to effective implementation.” “It is on this basis that the High Level Ministerial Panel at this year’s Africa Focus Sessions will explore possibilities of using science to enrich policy making and increase policy implementation efficiency,” the AMCOW president added.
 
The Senegalese Hydraulic and Sanitation Minister, Mansour Faye disclosed that this year’s World Water Week and by extension the Africa Focus Sessions, will provide a global platform for him and his colleague Ministers to “discuss policy options and enabling factors that support the adaption and implementation of innovative wastewater management approaches and technologies as well as draw recommendations on how African states can move from waste to benefits.”
 
To Dr. Mohamed Abdel Atty, the Egyptian Water and Irrigation Minister and AMCOW Vice President for North Africa, AMCOW’s commitment to achieving an Africa where there is equitable and sustainable use and management of water resources for poverty alleviation and socio-economic development, regional cooperation and the environment remains unwavering. “With improved wastewater management particularly in the industrial and agricultural sectors, Africa will be on the firm path to food security and sustainable development” Dr Atty said.
 
Speaking on behalf of Water and Sanitation Ministers from Southern Africa region at the World Water Week, Mrs Jabulile Mashwama, Kingdom of Swaziland’s Minister for Natural Resources and Energy and AMCOW Vice President (Southern Africa), this year’s world water week provides an opportunity for Africa Ministers “to highlight the vision and aspirations of the water and sanitation community and stakeholders; share evidence and perspectives, as well as policy options on enabling factors that support the adoption and implementation of innovative wastewater approaches.”
 
From Central Africa region came the voice of caution as Léopold Mboli Fatran, Central African Republic Minister for Water, Mines and Energy and AMCOW Vice President for Central Africa underlined the fact that the quest to turn waste to benefits requires maximizing the resource recovery and reuse potentials in both sewered and non-sewered systems.
 
“If this is not well managed and supported by both government and development partners, the prospects of polluting the eco system, compromising water quality and undermining safe sanitation and hygiene won’t be ruled out” Fatran added.
 
AMCOW’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Canisius Kanangire agrees with the Central African Minister as faecal sludge and wastewater continually pose threats to human livelihood especially in African cities experiencing population growth due to rural to urban migration.
 
According to Dr. Kanangire, experiences by AMCOW member states show that wastewater can be a resource for irrigation with basic treatment and proper hygiene practices; sludge can be used as a source of energy, and fertilizers. “The productive use of waste water can generate income, development of micro enterprise and employment, as well as contribute to urban food and energy security. The threat therefore could be turned into opportunities for poverty alleviation” Kanangire says.
 
Wastewater: the untapped resource
The 2017 UN World Water Development Report states that most human activities that use water produce wastewater. As the overall demand for water grows, the quantity of wastewater produced and its overall pollution load are continuously increasing worldwide.
 
Over 80% of the world’s wastewater and over 95% in some least developed countries is released to the environment without treatment.
 
The report which dubs wastewater as the “untapped resource” observed that once it is discharged into water bodies, wastewater is either diluted, transported downstream or infiltrates into aquifers, where it can affect the quality (and therefore the availability) of freshwater supplies.
 
The ultimate destination of wastewater discharged into rivers and lakes is often the ocean with negative consequences for the marine environment. However, with improved and innovative management, wastewater can generate social, environmental and economic benefits essential for sustainable development.
 
AMCOW and the World Water Week
Established since 2002, the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW) brings together Water and Sanitation ministers from 55 African countries to promote cooperation, security, social and economic development and poverty eradication among member states through the effective management of the continent’s water resources and provision of water.
 
As Technical Committee for Water and Sanitation of the African Union, AMCOW contributes to Africa’s progress towards sustainable growth and development by providing political leadership in the continent's efforts at achieving effective and efficient management of water resources through the provision of adequate and equitable access to safe water and sanitation
 
The World Water Week is the annual focal point for the globe’s water issues. Organised by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), the event brings together experts, practitioners, decision-makers, business innovators and young professionals from a range of sectors and countries to network, exchange ideas, foster new thinking and develop solutions to the most pressing water-related challenges of today.
 
This year’s theme “water and waste: reduce and reuse” reinforces SIWI’s belief in the relevance of water to global prosperity and the attainment of a water wise world.